


The Beating of Our Hearts

by Sornettes (CatchingTomorrow)



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Adult Content, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Band Fic, Bipolar Disorder, Multi, Not Actually Unrequited Love, There are cute revolutionaries with instruments okay what more do you want from me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-16 11:38:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/861554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatchingTomorrow/pseuds/Sornettes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Les Amis de l'ABC are a band based in New York City leading the charge into a new era of rock music. They have a message and the world is listening, but fame is a tightrope and it only takes one wrong step. Because everyone knows that music is only one part of rock 'n' roll, and the lifestyle is not something to be lived lightly. Just hold on tight, try not to be dazzled by the limelight, and welcome to the revolution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo I saw people in the barricade boys tag on Tumblr wishing there was a band AU multichapter. And I am but a human with human weaknesses.
> 
> I made you a thing, guys.

Enjolras usually made a point not to drink to excess – an uncommon choice in the world of rock and roll, but then he was hardly a typical rock star – which was why the intense pain that stabbed through his brain immediately after opening his eyes was such a shock. He groaned as the pain transitioned smoothly into a dull throbbing that he could just about put up with as long as he didn’t look directly at the sunlight streaming through the window and crawled pathetically out of bed to drag himself towards the water and aspirin waiting for him in the bathroom, pulling on a pair of pyjama bottoms as he went.

He only had a few regrets in all of his twenty-three years, and one of them was letting Courfeyrac convince him that the platinum certification of their third album was an occasion that deserved to be marked with tequila shots. Enjolras privately doubted that any occasion was worth drowning one’s self in tequila over, but it was kind of a big deal, and Bahorel had really gone all-out in hosting one of the most audacious parties he’d ever been to (and he’d been to a lot of parties) so it had seemed almost rude not to. He found the aspirin under the sink and gulped it down with tapwater, then pulled his hair back and examined his face in the mirror. He looked like complete shit. His skin was pallid, there were prominent dark circles underneath his eyes and on his neck-

Fuck.

_Hot breath ghosting over his pulse point, gasping in ecstasy, throwing his head back against the pillow as kiss-swollen lips clamped down and sucked..._

Enjolras stared at the hickey and swore under his breath. It was bright red and glaringly obvious. How did it get there? Fragments of sound and sensation swirled through his memory like puzzle pieces. He turned on the cold tap and splashed water over his face. _Think..._

The happenings of the previous night came back to him in fits and starts that left him gripping the sink and biting back a string of colourful curse words. Grantaire. Of course. Who else would it have been? He remembered leaving Bahorel’s party together, neither of them sober enough to really know where they were going, and ending up at Enjolras’s New York apartment in a tangle of lips and hands. He remembered falling through the doorway, shirts hitting the floor, Grantaire’s mouth moving downwards until Enjolras was clutching the wall for balance as his legs threatened to give way beneath him. He remembered saying... things.

He groaned in despair and cradled his aching head in his hands, his elbows braced against the rim of the sink. He could hear the words in his mind, blurred and distant like a low-quality sound recording. He’d confessed everything. He’d pushed Grantaire down onto his bed and kissed him like he was desperate and told him breathlessly that he loved him, that he always had done, that he couldn’t live without him and _he loved him, he loved him, he loved..._

Grantaire had said it back, gasped it against his lips. Of course he had. This was such a fucking catastrophe.

What to do? For one reckless, wonderful moment Enjolras entertained the idea of climbing back into bed, curling up to him (it was before midday, he didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d still be there) and kissing him awake. But that was impossible. He had to think of the band. Courfeyrac had no problem with one night stands – God knew he’d be a hypocrite if he did – but Enjolras didn’t like to think what the publicist would do to him if he knew that he was considering entering into a serious, exclusive relationship, and with another band member no less. And the logical side of him knew that he had good reason; intra-band relationships were a recipe for disaster. If he and Grantaire started dating and then broke up he wasn't going to kid himself into believing that their career would survive it. Les Amis de l’ABC were more important than his personal happiness, he _knew_ that, he just-

No. He’d been successfully ignoring this for years now. Last night was just a blip. A momentary lapse in judgement. He could still erase it, pretend it never happened at all. He could do that. He had no choice.

He just hoped that Grantaire remembered less of it than he did.

He filled a glass with tapwater, tipped another few tablets out of the bottle and carried then back to the bedroom. Steeling himself, he poked the mass of tangled blankets on the other side of the king-size bed and said, "R? R, wake up."

There was a long, drawn-out, agonised groan, then the blankets stirred and the top of Grantaire's tangle of curly black hair appeared up near the pillows. Enjolras poked him again and he rolled over, tipped sideways off the mattress and fell out of bed in a tangle of limbs and blankets. "I don't..." he mumbled, "what do you... I... ah, _fuck_."

Enjolras threw him a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt and put the water and aspirin down on the carpet next to him. He opened his mouth to say something that he was sure was going to be very eloquent and important, but all that came out was a high-pitched "I'll be in the kitchen," and he ran from the room before Grantaire could formulate a reply.

In the ten minutes it took him to wake up thoroughly enough to swallow the water and tablets and stagger down the hallway to the kitchen, Enjolras had already produced two cups of coffee, four pieces of toast and a plan of attack. The aspirin was beginning to kick in and he was feeling slightly human again. "Here," he said, taking pity on Grantaire and handing him the coffee that he hadn't already filled with milk and sugar. "Hell of a night last night, wasn't it? I forgot how crazy Bahorel's parties can be."

"Yeah," said Grantaire. He took a sip of his coffee and pulled a face. "Tastes weird."

"It's not Irish."

"Oh." He shrugged and gulped down half the mug in one go anyway. When he emerged, he was actually smiling. "Crazy's right. Best night of my life, though."

Enjolras forced his voice to stay neutral. "Was it? I don't remember a thing."

Grantaire's expression didn't change, but any life he'd managed to scrounge from the coffee and aspirin drained from his face in seconds. "What?"

 _It's for the good of the band._ "I think it was the tequila. I remember Courfeyrac talking me into doing shots with him but after that... nothing."

"...Nothing? You don't remember what we did?"

Enjolras concentrated on buttering his toast. If he looked at Grantaire's face he might break down and ruin everything. "Well, from the fact that we woke up naked in my bed, I'm assuming we slept together." He took a deep breath. "See, this is why I prefer not to drink. Alcohol makes you do things you wouldn't usually do. And say things you don't mean. Toast?"

There was a long silence, then Enjolras looked up with a start at the sound of the fridge door slamming open. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for some whisky to put in here." Grantaire waved his half-empty mug. "But knowing you I'm only going to find pretentious fucking organic guava-cranberry-acai juice or whatever... oh, what's this?" He pulled a glass bottle from the very back of the fridge and checked the label. "Smirnoff, who'd have thought? I guess even rock gods need a little pick-me-up every now and then."

"It's not mine." It was a remnant of last time they were in New York, when Courfeyrac, Feuilly, Bahorel and Jehan had come over to have a movie marathon on his plasma screen and invented drinking games to go with each one. He'd forgotten it was still there. "R, don't-"

Grantaire tipped the contents into his coffee and dropped the bottle into the bin. There wasn't that much left, but he still didn't like to think of the coffee-to-vodka ratio inside that cup at half past nine in the morning. Grantaire took a long gulp and flashed him a wide, manic smile. "To each their own, my fair Apollo. Some of us prefer to have a little uncertainty in our lives. A healthy amount of insincerity can be so comforting."

Enjolras sighed. "If you say so."

"I do." He glanced up at the clock on the wall. "And I should be going. I've probably overstayed my welcome here anyway. Thanks for letting me use your bed."

"Um. No problem. Don't forget we have a rehearsal down at the studio at one o'clock this afternoon. Please don't be drunk."

Grantaire grabbed two pieces of dry toast off the counter and stuffed one into his mouth. "I'll be there," he managed, crumbs spraying everywhere, and made a beeline for the front door, stopping only to pick up his shirt from where it lay crumpled in the hallway before slipping wordlessly out of the apartment.

Back in the kitchen, Enjolras sank down into a chair and buried his face in his hands.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is getting seriously out of control. I think I just wrote over ten thousand words in less than five days. These guys just write themselves, I swear.

The wind was colder up here than it had been on the ground. Enjolras tugged the zip on his jacket all the way up to his throat and checked that there was no lock before shutting the door behind him. It was Eponine who had taught him how to get up onto the roof of the school. She and Montparnasse used to sneak up here to skip class and smoke cigarettes before he was kicked out for possessing substances that he wasn't supposed to possess on school property. But Enjolras had no desire to slip class or smoke cigarettes - or possess any questionable substances, for that matter. He was only up here because it was more private than the courtyard with better soundproofing than the music rooms.

Singing came naturally to him, but that didn't mean that he didn't need to practise. He took elective music classes three times a week and voice was his instrument. It was his music teacher, Mr Lamarque, who had first heard him humming to himself when he thought no-one was listening and asked him why he wasn't in the school choir. Because it conflicted with the debating club and Enjolras had his priorities. Singing was a hobby, but it was never going to help him change the world. Even so, it was with his encouragement that he switched classes from legal studies to music. He'd never learnt an instrument, but Lamarque played notes on the piano for him to imitate and declared him to have near-perfect pitch. He was a tenor with an unusually wide range and Lamarque began to teach him how to use it. He learned how to hold himself, how to breathe, how to use vibrato and switch seamlessly between head and chest voice. He sang for his grades, and he remained a straight-A student.

The rooftop seemed to be empty. Enjolras cleared his throat, straightened his posture and began. He was working on an acapella rendition of _Imagine_ by John Lennon for his mid-term project and there were still a few notes he needed to perfect. Yes, he decided at the end of the first verse, he liked this practice spot. It may be slightly against school rules, but he'd never agreed with the restriction of student movement anyway. Besides, no-one ever came up here; he wouldn't be caught and he could sing his heart out without having to be self-conscious. It was everything he could've asked for.

As the last note of the song faded away on the wind, a voice said, "You sing like a fucking angel, man," and his heart skipped a beat.

"Who's there?" he asked, annoyed and embarrassed that his practice session had been overheard. There was a scuffle of shoes on concrete and a boy emerged from around the corner of the block housing the staircase that led back down into the building. He'd been only feet away for the entire song. Enjolras made a mental note to search the roof properly next time before starting.

"Not an angel, actually," continued the boy. He was about the same age as Enjolras with dark, curly hair that had probably never met a brush before and the sort of destroyed jeans that didn't come off the shelf that way. He looked familiar. "An angel'd be too bland. You're more like... a god of music. A modern-day Apollo." The boy grinned. "You look enough like him, anyway."

"Sorry, who are you?"

"My name's Grantaire," he said. "You can call me R if you like. It's French. Because-"

"-Because ' _grand aire_ ' means 'capital R'. Very clever."

Grantaire narrowed his eyes. "So do you steal everyone's punchlines, or...?"

"Sorry," said Enjolras. "My mother is French-Canadian and I lived in Montreal until I was seven. it still kind of comes naturally, you know?"

"You mean you actually speak French?" Grantaire's blue eyes were enraptured. "That's so cool. I only took it for a semester when I was a freshman. I can ask to buy an apple."

"Do I know you from somewhere? You seem familiar."

Grantaire had the decency not to look offended. "We're in the same senior music class. I'm the useless one that sits in the back corner and never participates."

"I'm sure you're not useless, R."

"Don't tell me what I can and can't be."

Enjolras faltered. "No- I would never-"

But now Grantaire was smiling again, leaving him confused and a little dizzy. "I know you wouldn't. Listen, are you going to sing that song again? I was trying to work out the guitar chords for it."

"You play guitar?"

"Since I was nine. So you gonna sing or what?"

Enjolras checked his watch and pulled a face. "My European history class starts in five minutes. I have to go."

Grantaire looked genuinely disappointed. "Oh. Okay, then."

"Don't you have class now too?" He knew his timetable was unusually full, but even for average students two free periods in a row was excessive.

"Yep. Algebra. But I gave up on trying to understand that shit years ago, so I think I'm just gonna stay here. Enjoy your European history."

"Okay," he said, still slightly bemused. "See you around, then."

"See you. Oh, and Apollo?" Enjolras paused halfway through the door. "I meant what I said. When you sing that song, you almost make me believe it."

 

* * *

 

When Enjolras arrived at the studio at one o'clock on the dot, most of the band was already there. This was an infrequent and highly convenient circumstance dampened only by the fact that half of them seemed to be even more hungover than he was. Now he thought about it, they were probably only here early because they'd all slept at each other's houses.

"Hey," he said, earning a chorus of groans in response. He pulled off the beanie that hid his hair, thus rendering him more or less unrecognisable to all but the most dedicated Les Amis fans, and carefully adjusted his scarf in the hallway mirror. "Who are we still waiting on?"

In the main room of the studio, the band was not on top form. Bahorel was still wearing the same crumpled clothes from the night before and looked to be fast asleep at his drumkit, drooling peacefully over the surface of the snare drum. Eponine sat slumped on a chair with her forehead resting against the top of her bass guitar, the giant sunglasses she was wearing making it impossible to tell whether or not her eyes were closed. Marius, thankfully, didn't seem to be too out of it; he raised a hand in greeting as Enjolras came in then went back to adjusting the settings on his keyboard. Joly looked to be pretty much okay as well, but Bossuet was curled up under the sound desk with Feuilly, deeply asleep. Enjolras had no idea why those two were even there - they weren't needed at practice sessions and only dropped by to watch and hang out with the band. Joly and Bahorel must've dragged them along for moral support. Combeferre - who would have been almost normal if not for sunglasses almost as dark as Eponine's - looked up from the sound desk, did a quick headcount and told him "We're almost all here. Just waiting on R now."

Enjolras pulled the spare chair out from under the desk and slumped down into it, trying to ignore the sick feeling of guilt that had been just as painful as his head all morning. It was a good thing Courfeyrac didn't seem to have decided to brave the great outdoors today or he would've been treated to an earful about the unfairness of tyrannical no-relationships rules. It wouldn't have made a difference, and it wouldn't have made dating other Amis any less of a terrible idea, but it might have made him feel better. "He'll be here."

Marius didn't look convinced. "Can we start without him?"

"He'll _be_ here." Enjolras glared at him until he dropped his gaze back down to his keyboard. "He'll probably be worse than those two," he gestured to Feuilly and Bossuet, "but he'll be here. He always is."

Eponine raised her head from her bass, the edge of which had left an indentation on her forehead. "Puppy's got a point. I'm not seeing a whole lot of potential productivity from this sorry lot as it is today."

"As your manager," interjected Joly from the corner, "I'm obliged to remind you that we're scheduled to start recording in three weeks' time. And also that late nights and excessive drinking kill brain cells."

Eponine stifled a yawn. "Three weeks is ages. We've pretty much got everything down already, we're just fine-tuning. If we practise every day from now until then-"

"I've already announced the release date and we're cutting it close as it is. Courfeyrac says that if we aren't touring then if we want to keep the hype up we have to-"

Enjolras sighed. "Who cares about what Courfeyrac says?"

"You do, last time I checked," said Joly, looking at him in concern. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. It's just not all about publicity. It's about-"

"The message, we know," said Eponine. "Oi, wake up, you. If we have to suffer through this then you're suffering with us." She leant over and poked Bahorel sharply in the ribs with one of his drumsticks.

He yelped and sat up, bleary-eyed and disoriented. "What's going on?"

"We're waiting for R," explained Combeferre.

Out in the hallway there was the sound of the front door opening and footsteps on the carpet. "I told you he'd be here," said Enjolras, then raised his voice to call, "It's about time, we've been-"

He stopped. It wasn't Grantaire who burst into the studio like the dawn of spring with a notebook clutched in his slender fingers. It was Jehan, and he was beaming widely enough to offset all of the hungover apathy in the room. "I wrote a song!" he exclaimed, holding out the notebook like a trophy.

Eponine squinted at him through her oversized sunglasses. "Good. That's what we pay you for."

"No no, you don't understand! I wrote  _the_ song. Our next _Vive la Revolution_."

 _Vive la Revolution_ had been the main single from their first album. It had charted in eighteen countries, made it to number one in ten of them and marked the definitive beginning of what critics called 'a new revolution of rock'. Les Amis de l'ABC became a household name and that record alone raised over two million dollars for charity. Even now, three years and two albums later, the legacy of that song still followed them wherever they went. Jean Prouvaire had been their official lyricist ever since.

"Let's see it, then," said Enjolras. Jehan practically squealed with excitement and threw the book at him. It bounced off his knees and landed on the floor. He picked it up and flipped through the unintelligible scribbles to the most recent page. Jehan's writing was loopy and hard to read, but he'd known him since college and had just about learnt how to decipher it. He scanned the lines once, then a second time, then looked up and said, "This is really good."

"Let me have a look." Eponine reached over his shoulder and plucked the notebook from his grip. "Wow. He's not kidding."

Jehan was fizzing so hard he looked to be in danger of reaching critical mass. "You really think so?"

"Yeah. What does this mean?" She held the book up and pointed to the margin, where he had written either 'FV' or 'MV' next to each line.

"Female voice and male voice. It's a duet."

Enjolras blinked. "A duet? What did you write a duet for?"

"I don't know, I got carried away. It just kind of happened."

"But we only have one singer. I thought you just wanted us to layer voice tracks."

Bahorel rubbed his temples and winced. "Where are we supposed to get a female voice? Eponine sucks. No offense, 'Ponine."

"None taken."

"We can find someone," insisted Jehan. "There are loads of singers who'd kill for a chance to record a song with Les Amis. If Courfeyrac puts out a call right now then we can start recording it as a single as soon as we're done with this album." He turned to Joly with big, pleading eyes. "What do you think?"

Joly sighed. "Fine. I'll ring Courf later today. But please, for God's sake, focus on the album for today. I've already started contacting venues about tour dates and if we have to push back the release it'll screw everything up."

"Eponine's right," said Enjolras. "We're nearly done as it is. Stop worrying. I'm going to call R."

He left the room just as Marius began to lean over his keyboard to read the notebook over Eponine's shoulder. In the hallway, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the time. Almost two o'clock. Grantaire had left it this late plenty of times before (though, in his defence, so had Eponine and Bahorel, and even Marius once or twice) but that didn't mean he wasn't going to pay in blood and tears for holding them up. Enjolras pulled his number from the contacts list and held the phone up to his ear as it rang... rang... rang out.

He swore. That probably wasn't a good sign. There was no point leaving a message, he knew Grantaire never checked his voicemail. He tried again. Nothing.

He poked his head back into the studio. "He's not answering."

Bahorel folded his arms and leant back on his stool. "Fucking marvellous."

"He'll be here," said Enjolras again, though he wasn't sure how firmly he still believed it. "He's probably just-"

The opening chords of _Imagine_ filled the room. Enjolras flipped open his phone. "R, I swear to God-"

"It's Courfeyrac." He fell silent. The voice on the other end of the phone wasn't the enthusiastic, confident chirping he was used to. Courfeyrac sounded faint, as though he was barely holding himself together. "I... it's... I called an ambulance. There's... something wrong with R. You should probably come."

The phone went dead. Enjolras stared numbly at it for several seconds, then shoved it back into his pocket and addressed the studio full of questioning faces. "Practice is over. We're going to the hospital."

He was out of the front door before the others could even move to wake Feuilly and Bossuet, pulling his hair up under the beanie as he went.


	3. Chapter 3

"What's your name?"

"Grantaire."

"Your date of birth?"

"The nineteenth of October, nineteen eighty-nine."

"The name of your band?"

"Les Amis de l'ABC. Why do you need to know that?" He frowned. "Is this some sort of amnesia test?"

The doctor smiled sheepishly. "I just wanted to check if it was really you. I'm a big fan."

"Oh. Yeah, it's me."

"I know you probably get this a lot, but I can't believe I'm actually meeting you in person. We heard that someone with your name got admitted to the ER this afternoon and all the nurses were arguing over whether it was you or just someone with the same name. I really admire your work, you have no idea. I play the guitar myself, actually."

Grantaire folded the sheets over and over between his fingers. They weren't shaking. He didn't know if that was a good sign or not. "Really."

The doctor nodded. "Oh, yes," he said enthusiastically. "You're my idol, you really are. Your riff in _Wings_ is pure genius and that solo you do in _A New World_ still gives me chills every time I hear it. I've been listening to that since it came out, by the way. I'm a true fan. On the bandwagon since before _Vive la Revolution_."

"That's nice. So am I dying or what?"

"Oh. Right." He looked down at the clipboard in his hands as though surprised to see it still there. "You were admitted this afternoon after your friend found you unresponsive on the floor of his apartment and called for an ambulance. He seemed to think you'd been drinking, but we tested your blood and the alcohol content was only 0.21%. Well over the limit, but not enough to cause poisoning under normal circumstances. We also found an abnormally high percentage of lithium. Now, I have your medical details here," he tapped the clipboard, "and apparently you're on lithium-based medication to treat bipolar disorder. Is that correct?"

Grantaire nodded.

The doctor looked almost affronted. "I didn't know you were bipolar."

"Really? I thought you were a 'true fan'."

"Is that why you left halfway through the South American tour last year? You never did release a statement about that."

He fisted his hands in the sheets and bit back another sarcastic response. The South American tour of 2012 was something he would give a great deal never to have to think about again. They had been halfway to Costa Rica by the time he'd realised that he'd left his medication in the hotel bathroom in Honduras. But he'd been more or less stable for years by then and, rather than cause a fuss getting new ones shipped in, he'd kept the issue to himself, figuring that if he still felt like he needed them by the end of the tour then he'd get a new prescription when they arrived back in the US. Several days later, he was convinced that this was the best decision he had ever made. He felt lighter than air, as though all the chemicals forced into him by psychiatrists had been weighing him down all this time. He played some of the best concerts in his life in Panama and Colombia and by the time they reached Venezuela he could see their music in three-dimensional colour and manipulate the lighting with his thoughts. Enjolras had cornered him in the hotel in Caracas and demanded to know if he was on drugs. Grantaire had been immensely proud of himself for achieving a new state of being without mind-altering substances and had spent the journey to Brazil silently developing theories about the next stage of evolution for the human race.

On their first night in Rio de Janeiro, he hadn't slept for three days and spent seven hours scratching the wallpaper off the walls of his hotel room with his fingernails. He didn't really remember why. It was green and that had seemed completely wrong at the time - red was so much better, why hadn't they painted it red? They'd found him an hour before they were due to start the sound check at the first venue, sitting in the corner of the room scratching at the wall with bloodied fingers and chattering semi-coherently about the spiritual importance of complementary colours to anyone who would listen. He was flown straight back to the US and replaced by a guest guitarist for the remainder of the tour. South America had never forgiven him.

But Grantaire wasn't about to tell the doctor that. He'd enjoy it far too much.

"Anyway," he continued, sensing that a response was not forthcoming, "it looks like your condition was caused by a mixture of mild lithium poisoning and the combination of depressants in alcohol and the anti-convulsants in your medication. I'd tell you that mixing alcohol and meds is a bad idea, but I'm sure you already know that. Do you know why there's so much lithium? Are you on a new course of treatment?"

Grantaire stared down at his sheets, diligently avoiding eye contact. "I may have possibly worked out that taking a few extra pills means I can get drunk faster."

The doctor grinned at him in unconcealed awe. "God, that's so rock 'n' roll."

"Aren't you supposed to be discouraging me?"

"Of course. Seriously, never do that again. It's very, very dangerous. You were lucky this time, but lithium poisoning isn't something to mess around with. I'd also suggest avoiding alcohol completely while you're taking anti-convulsants. You're playing a risky game with unstable substances and the consequences could be catastrophic. Besides, we need you around to keep making your music. I don't think I could-"

The curtain was thrown back and Courfeyrac pushed past a stunned-looking nurse hovering outside to drop to his knees at Grantaire's bedside. "Oh my God, R, never do that to me again. I almost had a heart attack, I thought you were going to die! They told me you were awake but they didn't say... are you okay, man? What happened?"

The doctor began to explain his condition, but Grantaire wasn't listening. Enjolras had stepped past the curtain and was standing quietly at the edge of his bed. He was wearing a hat, as he usually did when he was trying to function as a regular human being in society, but he'd evidently thrown it on in a hurry as stray curls of blond hair had freed themselves to hang down around the sides of his face. He caught Grantaire's eye and smiled weakly. "You said you'd be at practice."

Grantaire smiled back. "Yeah, well. Something came up."

"How are you feeling?"

He shrugged. "Fine. A bit tired and headachey, but what else is new?"

"The others are in the waiting room. They wouldn't let more than two of us in." Enjolras turned to the doctor, who was still deep in conversation about acute versus chronic lithium poisoning with Courfeyrac. "Can we take him home now?"

"Hm? Oh, yes, I'd say so. There don't seem to be any further complications with-" He did a double-take. "Wait... are you...?"

Enjolras rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Hi."

The doctor looked like he might be about to have a seizure. He took a deep breath. "I am a _huge_ fan of your work."

 

* * *

 

Grantaire's apartment was on the top floor of a fairly nondescript building in Manhattan and just slightly too far away from the studio to be entirely convenient, a fact which had been abused many times to justify being half an hour late for rehearsal. It wasn't anything special to look at on the outside - or on the inside, for that matter - but Grantaire preferred it that way. He had used their initial sales successes to buy his way out of the one-room hole in Brooklyn he'd been living in since he was eighteen, which his friends had affectionately named 'the cesspit', but he'd never had ambitions towards penthouse suites or inner-city palaces. This apartment had two bedrooms, a bathroom with an actual bath, a kitchen, a dining room and a living room, and he'd decorated the whole place with wonky posters of classic rock bands, a surprising number of fine art reproductions and enough mess to keep his maid employed for the rest of her working life.

It was Enjolras who brought him home and took the elevator up to the top floor with him despite his protestations that he was fine, really, there was no need to worry about him. "You were discharged into my care," he insisted. "I have to at least make sure you get back to your apartment alive."

"That's all just paperwork and technicalities," said Grantaire, fishing his keys out of his pocket and opening the door. "It's two o'clock in the morning. Don't you want to go home?"

Enjolras followed him into the kitchen and sat down on one of the diner-style barstools pushed up against the counter. "Not really."

"Well, I guess I do still owe you for letting me sleep at your place last night." He opened the fridge and pulled out a king-sized bag of mini M&M's, ignoring Enjolras's shocked stare.

"You... do you want...?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I have a spare bedroom, Apollo. What were you suggesting?"

"Oh. Nothing." Enjolras felt blood rushing to his face and stared randomly around the room, looking for a distraction. "That's new," he said quickly, pointing to a print hanging on the wall. "Is it a Renoir?"

"Monet." Grantaire held out the bag. "M&M's?"

"No thanks. Why are you eating M&M's at two o'clock in the morning anyway?"

"'Cause I'm hungry. And you don't see me judging your lifestyle."

"Okay, sorry."

"You should be. Offer still stands, though; if you want my spare room you're welcome to it. There's no need, though. Honestly."

He shrugged. "I know. I'd just worry all night anyway if I was on my own. I'd feel better if I was there to make sure everything's okay."

"It will be. And you really shouldn't worry about me so much. I'm not worth turning all your pretty hair grey over." Grantaire put the M&M's back in the fridge and knelt down to open the liquor cabinet under the counter.

Enjolras frowned. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Am I sure what's a good idea?" he asked, emerging with a bottle of red wine and unscrewing the lid.

"Drinking. R, you're on medication. Mixing meds and alcohol's put you in the hospital once already."

He shrugged and took a swig. "That was only because I took too much by accident. I'm fine, honestly. I've been on these meds for years and I've been drinking the whole time, I know what I'm doing."

"But you've been getting worse recently," Enjolras persisted. "Since we stopped touring you've been drunk more and more often. I'm not the only one who's noticed."

"So? I don't miss practice. I don't get into trouble. Why do you care?"

"I just don't want you to hurt yourself, R."

"See, again with the worrying." He took another swig of wine and grinned. "You're going to have wrinkles by the time you're twenty-five at this rate. I don't know if I should be flattered or not."

Enjolras rubbed his temples. "Please don't make this into a joke."

"I'm sorry, I just find it hard to take this lecture seriously coming from someone who spent most of last night wrapped around me rambling about how I was the love of his life."

He froze. "You remember?"

Grantaire shrugged again. "Bits and pieces. You're a very affectionate drunk, Apollo. I suppose that much tequila's enough to make anyone fall in love."

Enjolras stared at him across the counter. It was like watching a horror film; he knew something awful was about to happen, that there was something terrible waiting for him at the end of this corridor of conversation but he just couldn't bring himself to shut his mouth and end it. "What?"

"It's okay," he continued. "I know the feeling. After a few shots, everyone's your soulmate. You should hear some of the things I tell people who come home from bars with me, then in the morning I don't even remember who they are."

"So... you didn't mean...?"

Grantaire gazed steadily at him over the top of his bottle. "Did you?"

Enjolras swallowed. "No."

"Then neither did I." He took a long gulp of wine and headed back towards the door. "Night."

"Wait!" Enjolras searched for something to say, some magic words that could put things back to how they were before. He felt like something big and important had cracked and though he didn't know what it was, he was sure that if he didn't try to fix it now then nothing would ever be right again. "You don't have to go straight to bed if you don't want to. We could watch a movie or something. It's been ages since the last time we watched a movie together."

Grantaire sighed. "With all due respect, it's past two in the morning and I'm tired. I'd really rather just go to bed. Sweet dreams, Apollo."

Enjolras watched him disappear down the hallway, then retreated into the spare bedroom and collapsed fully-clothed onto the mattress like a soldier realising for the first time that his injuries are fatal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I have two things to say.
> 
> Thing one: I've never actually had bipolar disorder, so if I mess up any of the symptoms or treatments then please forgive me and leave a note down in the comments so I can fix it.
> 
> Thing two: I've been an exchange student in France for the last ten months, but my time is up at the end of this week. Naturally I have managed to accumulate an astonishing amount of crap to sort through and loose ends to tie up, and then there's a departure camp and the twenty-four hour journey itself. I'm really sorry if I get a bit buried under everything and can't upload a new chapter for a while. I promise to have it up next week at the latest.
> 
> Thank you!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! I'm back home now and I'm probably going to have a lot of free time, so the next updates should hopefully come fairly quickly. Thanks for being patient with me!

In Cosette Fauchelevent's bedroom, there were three things she valued above all else. The first thing was her video camera. She had adopted it from a girl at school two years ago after the screen had cracked and found it to be otherwise in surprisingly good condition. The sound quality in particular was excellent, which Cosette was glad of as her voice had a tendency to sound squeaky on bad recordings and she really didn't want to have to save up for a proper microphone. The camera sat on her desk right now, its little red recording light blinking away enthusiastically. The second was her laptop, which lay closed on her bed. It was pink, like most of her possessions, and had served her perfectly well since she was thirteen years old. Since then, it had acquired multiple sound and video editing programmes, several gigabytes of footage from her camera and enough stickers to almost completely hide the original paint job. The third and possibly most valued thing of all was her piano. It had been the very first gift her papa had given her after her adoption papers had been signed. It was somewhere between a baby piano and a keyboard with a portable stand and more sound settings than she could possibly hope to use. Cosette had spent most of her childhood sat in front of it imitating the songs she heard on the radio and, when she grew bored of them, writing her own.

The YouTube thing had happened almost by accident. She had been sixteen years old when she first made her channel, Lark24601, to upload videos of her songs for constructive criticism. Six months and twenty videos, both covers and originals, brought over ten thousand subscribers, and it had only spiralled further and further out of control since then. At seventeen, she had a significant online cult following who requested videos, filmed covers of her songs and sent letters and presents to her P.O. box address. It was a constant source of vague surprise and amusement for her to think that she was known and admired by thousands of people she'd never even seen before. She was even recognised a few times by strangers in shops and on the streets. But it wasn't until her high school graduation eight months ago that she'd realised she could actually do something with this.

She had applied for and been accepted into a music course at NYU for the next summer and begun to perform in pubs and cafes all over New York, all the while keeping a close watch on the skyrocketing viewcounts on her YouTube videos. Her papa had reluctantly agreed to support her in her quest on the condition that he take the position of her manager and have the power to veto any gig he didn't like the sound of. And so her career had begun.

"Cosette! Dinner's ready!"

Cosette's fingers missed a chord on her piano and she winced at the jarring note that resulted. Damn it. There went take one. She sighed and reached over the keyboard to turn off the video camera. She could try again after dinner. Her papa always got worried if she took too long to come down out of her bedroom. She had no idea what he thought she could be doing up there, but his imagination was often darker than the worst realities, particularly where his daughter was concerned. Cosette shut the lid of her piano and skipped downstairs to the kitchen.

The apartment she had shared with her adoptive father, Jean Valjean, since they moved to New York City several years ago was spacious and tastefully decorated with a panoramic view of the Queens skyline. It had come with its own maid, a woman called Mrs Toussaint who Cosette got along well with, and a private garden shared only with the other residents of the building. She didn't know how much the rent must cost or how they managed to pay for it, but her papa never complained of money worries and she had learnt to stop asking.

The dining table was already set for two with salmon, rice and steamed vegetables arranged neatly on ceramic plates. "How was your afternoon?" he asked, pulling out a chair for her to sit down.

"Good. I've been recording a new song."

They said grace and ate in silence for a few moments before Valjean cleared his throat. "I checked the P.O. box today."

"Really? Was there another teddy bear from that guy, whatshisface?"

"No, not this time. But there was a letter from Anarchist Records."

Cosette looked up from her salmon. "What?"

"That band you like, Les Amigos de something or other-"

"Les Amis de l'ABC."

"Those ones, they're looking for an independent female singer based in New York to record a duet. They're inviting you to send in an audition tape."

"Me?" She was an independent female singer based in New York. She could record a duet with Les Amis de l'ABC. Oh God.

"Apparently. Listen, I don't want you to get too excited. I expect they've sent invitations like this to every semi-professional singer in the city. You'll be up against a lot of competition, maybe even thousands of people. I'd hate for you to be disappointed."

She could meet the Amis. She could sing with Enjolras. She could _release a single with them_. "I won't get too excited, papa."

"And that's if you decide to send anything at all," he continued. "I want you to think hard about this, Cosette. It's not your usual genre, and bands like that... they can be quite unsavory. I wouldn't like to see you get caught up in that sort of lifestyle."

Les Amis de l'ABC feat. Cosette Fauchelevent. Or maybe just Cosette. It was snappier. "It's worth a try though, isn't it? I'm eighteen years old, I can deal with disappointment. And unsavory lifestyles." She put down her knife and fork. "What do they want me to do?"

"Record a video of yourself singing a song of your choice and send it to the return address. Just like you do for your friends on YouTube."

"Okay." She pushed back her chair and stood up. "Okay, I can do that."

"Not halfway through dinner you can't. Sit back down and finish your salmon."

Cosette had learnt years ago that there was no point in arguing with him. She dropped back down and inhaled the rest of her dinner, kissed her papa on the cheek and was running for her bedroom within minutes. Dessert could wait; she had a song to choose, a video to make and a professional duet to record with Les Amis de l'ABC.

 

* * *

 

Combeferre had been Enjolras's closest friend since the first grade and prided himself on being able to interpret the thoughts and feelings behind the lead singer's often stony exterior better than anyone else in the world. They understood each other; during their school days they had been able to carry out surprisingly complex conversations using only subtle glances and twitches of expression. He was also perhaps the only person that Enjolras would ever open up to and confide any sort of secret (though Enjolras wasn't alone in this - his job title was officially 'sound technician' but they might as well be honest and add 'and counsellor'). 

It was this closeness to Enjolras, and general attunement to the emotional wellbeing of the whole makeshift team behind Les Amis de l'ABC, that made Combeferre aware of the fact that something was very wrong between their singer and lead guitarist from the moment they first arrived together at the studio the day after Grantaire had passed out on Courfeyrac's kitchen floor. Enjolras wasn't wearing that neckscarf he obviously thought was so inconspicuous, so Combeferre was inclined to believe that whatever happened between them the night of Bahorel's party had not become a continuing occurrence. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. But if not dating meant they were going to behave like this towards each other, he was starting to wish that they'd take the risk. They weren't unfriendly, but the overly-formal awkwardness between them was stifling. Enjolras would refuse to make eye contact when he spoke to him as though afraid of what might happen if he did, then Grantaire would fiddle with the tuning of his guitar and pretend not to notice the singer downright staring at him when he thought no-one was looking. It was if something had killed their relationship, which had never been particularly stable in the first place, and now it was desperately trying to struggle back to life, but the rigor mortis had set in and neither of them could quite remember how to be how they were before.

Fortunately, their awkwardness hadn't affected either of their abilities to do what they did best and by the time three weeks had passed and the recording sessions began, every song had been tweaked, practised and perfected. Joly had no reason to worry, though Combeferre privately suspected that Joly liked worrying and would always find something to work himself up over no matter how well everything seemed to be going. Recording sessions ran all day for a week and though the audition tapes began to pour in from New York's best and brightest, no-one had the time or the energy to do anything but traipse home, fall into bed and sleep until it was time to start recording again. It wasn't until four days after they had officially called it a wrap that Enjolras showed up on Combeferre's doorstep with coffee and a flash drive full of every audition video they'd received.

"Are you sure you don't want to just drop Carly Rae Jepsen a line?" he asked, raising an eyebrow as he plugged the flash drive into his laptop and saw just how many files it contained.

Enjolras put the coffee down on the table and dropped onto the sofa. "Absolutely. There are thousands of young musicians out there who may never get their voices heard. I'd rather give one of them a chance than cut some deal with any random celebrity just because we already know their name."

"Point taken." Combeferre plugged the lead from his widescreen TV into the laptop, turned on the HD sound system and joined Enjolras on the sofa as the first singer strummed the opening chords on her guitar.

An hour and a half and two more coffees later, they'd only noted down three names as possible guest singers. They didn't know what they were looking for, which only made the process harder. Their judgements were made purely on gut instinct and they had to be picky if they were going to narrow it down to only one girl. Even so, after several dozen breathy melodies and monotonous indie ballads Combeferre's concentration was beginning to wane. It came as something of a relief when Enjolras turned away from the screen and said slowly, "'Ferre, can I ask your advice on something?"

"Of course you can," he replied. "Is this about you and R?"

Enjolras blinked. "How did you know?"

"You two have been acting strangely for weeks. Am I finally about to hear what's really going on?"

He bit his lip and nodded. "We... um... we slept together after Bahorel's party."

Combeferre gazed calmly at him, keeping his expression deliberately neutral. "And?"

"And... damn it, 'Ferre, you know I'm not good at talking about this stuff! I said I loved him. More than once. And he said it back."

"Did you mean it?"

"Yes. No. I don't know." He sighed in frustration and ran his fingers through his hair. "I think so. I've never... if he wasn't my bandmate this would all be different."

"But he is your bandmate."

"I know! So it was obviously the most stupid thing in the world to admit because you know how dating bandmates can turn out. It's not worth the risk. Les Amis de l'ABC sends a message to millions of people worldwide, and that's not even mentioning the charities supported by our sales. They're more important than my happiness."

"Your happiness is important too, Enj," said Combeferre. "Is that what you said to R?"

"No. I told him that I was too drunk to remember any of it and I didn't mean anything I said."

He had to fight to keep the shock off his face. "You did what?"

"I had to! He'd be upset if I tried to explain the real reason!"

"As opposed to how delighted he was when you disappointed him and invalidated everything he said. Is that the problem between you two?"

Enjolras shook his head. "He wasn't disappointed, actually. He told me that he doesn't remember much either and he says he loves everyone when he's drunk."

Combeferre stared at him. "He said that?"

"Yeah."

And Enjolras believed him, too. The look on his face said it all. His idiot of a best friend really was socially stunted enough to have someone blatantly head over heels in love with him for five years then not even think to doubt him when he tried to blame the culmination of their sexual tension on nothing more significant than alcohol. And it hurt. Enjolras would be too proud to admit it under torture, but Combeferre could see it in the set of his mouth and the tightness around his eyes.

"Enj," he sighed, "you need to be careful. You aren't a robot; you're capable of human weakness and you'll only hurt yourself if you keep trying to ignore your own feelings. And I think you hold more sway over R than you realise. Don't play with his emotions. He deserves better than that. You both do."

"But I'm not-" Enjolras paused, eyes flicking back to the screen. "Wait, who's that?"

The thirty-fourth video had been made with a regular camera in what seemed to be the singer's bedroom. The girl herself looked barely legal; she had long blonde hair pushed back from her face with a pink headband, big, childlike blue eyes and features as soft and delicate as a china doll's. She was undeniably beautiful, but her appearance had nothing on her voice. It was somewhere in the soprano range but didn't descend into breathiness, and she switched effortlessly between quiet sweetness and such breathtaking strength Combeferre was shocked to hear it coming from the mouth of such a small girl. During the piano instrumental, which she played flawlessly, she looked up at the camera and smiled. It was a timid smile, as though she'd tried to resist it but was just too overcome with joy not to let some of it leak out. She wiped it off her face to resume the song but couldn't quite stop her eyes from twinkling, and in that moment Combeferre could almost forget that she wasn't already his best friend.

"Cosette Fauchelevent," he said, checking the list. "She's eighteen years old, based in Queens, runs a popular YouTube channel under the name Lark24601. She's played at venues all over New York and guest starred on a few local radio stations but she isn't signed to any record labels yet."

"Put her down," said Enjolras, not taking his eyes off the screen. "She's good."

Combeferre wrote her name on his notepad, checking the spelling of her surname as he went. Maybe she could just be 'Cosette'. It was snappier.

By the time Enjolras left that evening, they'd only half-heartedly copied down one more name then put on _Braveheart_ , which they both secretly loved despite the historical inaccuracies. He headed back to his own apartment with one task ticked off his to-do list and advice to think seriously about his feelings and priorities, and Combeferre sank back down onto the sofa and pulled out his phone to call Courfeyrac.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters are turning out to be really uneven in length. Sorry about that. All the scenes keep ending up with really awkward wordcounts so I'm sort of just grouping them together as best I can. Also, jetlag is a bitch.

Central Park had been one of Cosette's favourite places since she and her papa had first moved to the city. It was the closest approximation to the great outdoors to be found here in this concrete jungle and she had always enjoyed having grass underneath her feet and the sound of birdsong in her ears. The birds here had their own kind of music. Listening to it inspired her. She could spend hours at a time sitting on this bench writing lyrics in her notebook and working out chords with her fingertips on the wooden planks.

Cosette wrote a line in her book, read it through, frowned and scribbled it out. She really was not on form today. It was as though she'd sent her songwriting muse off to Anarchist Records with her audition tape and now all she had left was a page full of lyrics half-formed and rejected. She would've blamed it on a low point in her creative cycle but she'd made the tape two weeks ago and now it was starting to get annoying.

"Come on," she muttered to herself, clicking the nib of her pen in and out, in and out, in and out. She had a gig in a restaurant in Manhattan that weekend and a new video to make and upload to her YouTube channel by Friday. She still had plenty of cover requests from her subscribers to fill but she'd been hoping to have a new song written by now. She'd almost had the beginning of one lying in bed last night, but she'd fallen asleep before she could write it down and now she couldn't remember it for the life of her. Her mse was so inconvenient.

" _I might have to wait, I'll never give up, I guess it's half timing and the other half's luck..._ "

Cosette took her phone out of her bag and checked the caller ID. Unknown. She flipped it open. "Hello?"

"Hi!" said a voice on the other end. It was a young man's voice, so friendly she amost had him pegged for an overenthusiastic telemarketer. "Is this Cosette Fauchelevent?"

"That's me. Who is this?"

"My name's Courfeyrac. You probably don't recognise it. I manage all communications and public relations for Les Amis de l'ABC. I'm calling about your audition tape."

Cosette gripped the edge of the bench with white-knuckled fingers and tried to keep herself from hyperventilating. "Was... was it okay? Did you like it?"

"Me? I haven't seen it, but I'm sure it was stunning. Enjolras mentioned you specifically to me. I'm calling to invite you to come and meet the band at our studio, maybe do a few sound tests. Would tomorrow be okay with you?"

She nodded frantically, then remembered that Courfeyrac couldn't see her over the phone. "Yes! Yes, tomorrow would be perfect." Did she have plans tomorrow? She couldn't think straight enough to remember. It didn't matter anyway.

"Awesome." He rattled off the studio's address and Cosette scribbled it down into her notebook with shaking hands. "See you tomorrow, then?"

"See you!" she squeaked, then hung up and threw her phone on the floor before he could hear the euphoric shriek that caused a nearby flock of pigeons to fly away in surprise. Les Amis de l'ABC wanted to meet _her_. _Enjolras had mentioned her specifically._ This was the biggest moment in her entire life so far. It could be the launching pad for her whole career. _She was going to be in the same room as the Amis tomorrow!_

After spending a good five minutes internally screaming and spending every ounce of willpower she had to stop herself from rolling around in the grass and kicking her legs in the air in excitement, she took a few deep breaths and collected herself. Her phone was not broken, though she doubted even a cracked screen would be able to put a dent in her happiness right now. She put it and her notebook back in her bag and strode out of Central Park in considerably better spirits than she'd entered it.

Just wait until her papa heard about this.

 

* * *

 

"Wait, _what_?" was Marius's first reaction to hearing the name of the singer scheduled to be meeting them today. "We're sound testing with Lark24601?"

"That's the name of her YouTube account, yeah," said Combeferre, giving him an odd look. "Do you know her?"

"I've only been subscribed to her channel for the past year and a half!" he breathed, running a hand through his hair so it stood up on end even worse than it usually did. "It's really her?"

"Yes, it's her," said Enjolras. "Could you act like a professional, please?"

"Don't pick on the puppy, Enj," teased Bahorel, earning himself an infuriated glare. "Is she hot?"

From the look Marius gave him he might as well have asked if she was edible. "Don't talk like that about her!"

Grantaire's grin could cut steel. "Is she _beautiful_ then, Marius? Is she like an angel fallen from Heaven? Would Helen of Troy have envied her loveliness? Does her radiance shine with the light of a thousand fairies?"

"Oh, shut up," he said, but his cheeks and the tips of his ears were beginning to flush pink. "She just as a nice voice, is all. I admire her work."

"'Her work'? Is that what we're calling it these days?"

"Could you shut up and leave him alone?" snapped Enjolras. "He's right; she's a musician, not an object. This is about the song. Nothing else."

"You're no fun," Bahorel scowled.

"We aren't here to have fun! We're here to change the world!"

"Cool it, Gandhi," said Eponine from the corner. "She's here."

Everyone sat up a little straighter. Eponine was right; there was the sound of the door slamming shut, footsteps in the hallway and Courfeyrac's voice saying, "-didn't really give you many details over the phone, I know, but you can ask them yourself if you have any questions. They're just through here."

He stepped through into the studio with a frighteningly pale Cosette a few paces behind him. She froze on the spot the minute the band came into view and stared around at each of them in turn, her blue eyes wide. For his part, Marius was glad he was sitting down or he was fairly certain his knees would've gone weak. Oh God. He'd been hoping that she wouldn't be as pretty in real life as she was in her videos, but unfortunately the exact opposite seemed to be true. He barely had time to notice how ironic it was that he would be starstruck by her before Courfeyrac was talking again.

"You probably know the band already, am I right?" he continued. Cosette nodded. "Well, for formality's sake. Enjolras, Cosette. Cosette, Enjolras. Don't let him scare you."

Enjolras glowered at Courfeyrac and stepped forwards to shake her hand. "It's good to finally meet you in person."

"Tell me about it," she breathed, staring up at him in mesmerised awe.

Courfeyrac tapped her on the shoulder. "If you can drag your eyes away from our beloved leader for just a minute - it's okay, it happens to the best of us - we have Grantaire on guitar, Eponine on bass, Bahorel on drums and Marius on keyboard."

"I'm a big fan of your YouTube channel," piped up Marius, then immediately regretted it. _Crap_. Shouldn't he be playing it cool? He was supposed to be a rock star, for God's sake. Would she think it was lame that he went around watching videos of non-rock stars on YouTube? Worse, what if she thought he was some kind of creeper? But the smile that lit up her face and set her eyes twinkling in response wiped all the worries from his mind. And everything else, for that matter.

"Really?" she squeaked. "I didn't know... I mean, thank you."

"The guy over there by the sound desk is Combeferre." Courfeyrac pointed to him and he raised a hand in greeting. "Sound technician, amateur psychiatrist and Enjolras's better half. Over there is Joly. He's our manager. He's an angel, really, but don't sneeze in front of him unless you want the building fumigated." Joly made an indignant noise but Courfeyrac had already moved on. "Bossuet. He does lighting and stage design so he doesn't really need to come to rehearsals, I guess, but he's cool so we let him hang out with us. Same goes for the ginger over there. That's Feuilly. Officially he's our driver but he and Bahorel have been bros since high school. And the little flowery mofo in the pink jeans is our lyricist, Jehan. If they sing it, he probably wrote it. Is that everyone? I think so. Everyone, meet Cosette."

She grinned nervously around the room. "Hi."

There were a few waves and echoed 'hi's, and an odd sort of squeak from Marius that sounded like something between a noise of acknowledgement and a 'hey' aborted halfway through, and that he also regretted instantly. He was beginning to wonder if it wasn't a good idea just to keep his mouth shut today.

"Do you need some time to warm up?" asked Enjolras.

"No, I'm okay," she said. "Ready when you are."

Cosette's sound test, in Marius's opinion, could not have gone better if they'd invited the heavenly chorus to come and sing with them. They started with one of their earlier songs that Cosette already knew off by heart and she and Enjolras traded lines and song harmonies to see how their voices sounded together. All of her initial shakiness wore away as she began to sing; she was in her element now and she evidently performed well under pressure. When Combeferre played it back for them, even Enjolras looked impressed.

"Okay," he said, "I think we can move onto the duet now. Jehan, can you give her the lyrics?"

Jehan bounded forwards with a neatly typed sheet and handed it to Cosette. She scanned the lines and smiled.

They had spent the last few sessions together jamming for hours straight and coming up with instrumental backing for the new song. Jehan had a vague idea of the melody but nothing overly specific so they'd had a lot of freedom to experiment. As much as was possible with Enjolras trying to sing both parts of the harmony, that was. With Cosette here to lend her voice to the mix, it could be a completely different ballgame. Marius played through the melody of her part on his keyboard a few times so that she could hum along and get a feel for it, forcing himself to stare at the keys and not the creases between her eyebrows that formed when she concentrated.

The first run-through was a little stilted with a few unscheduled stops and starts as she got used to the song and everyone else got used to having an actual voice singing her part. The second and third were exponentially better. By the fourth time, every one of them had relaxed into their parts and Jehan was practically wetting himself with glee.

"This is gonna be good," said Feuilly, as the last words faded into silence. "I can feel it."

"It's got potential, yeah," agreed Enjolras. "Cosette, can you try to sing that harmony in the second verse with a little more power? It's a big vocal event and I feel like I'm drowning you out. This is supposed to be about two equal haves, male and female, coming together to create a better world, so we need to represent them equally."

There was a derisive snort from behind him. Enjolras turned around with a sigh. "Do you have something to add, R?"

Grantaire raised his eyebrows. "Nothing. Just that you're worse than my high school English teacher."

"What?"

"It's a love song, Apollo. Deal with it. There's nothing wrong with a good love song and I'd say we're severely lacking in that department anyway."

"It's not a love song," snapped Enjolras. "It's a metaphor for the struggle for gender equality."

Grantaire shrugged and leant back in his chair, kicking his feet up onto a nearby amp. "A metaphor for the struggle for gender equality. Right. And _Bad Romance_ is a social commentary on US relations with the Middle East. You need to stop reading so much into things."

"It's not reading into things, it's pointing out the obvious! Isn't it, Jehan?"

Everyone's eyes turned to the lyricist. He bit his lip and squirmed in his seat. "I... it's open to interpretation. It's not the songwriter's intent that matters, it's what the listener takes away from it."

"And in this situation, what the listener will take away is that both genders are fundamentally equal and everyone should fight for a world in which we can all live freely regardless of sex," finished Enjolras, as though Jehan had done nothing but back up his point.

"If you say so."

His eyes narrowed. "I do say so. It's a beautiful song with a beautiful meaning. Just because you're too cynical to see it doesn't mean it isn't there."

"Not everyone in the world is a friggin' angel of justice like you," retorted Grantaire. "They relate to other people and to their own feelings, not great noble causes and abstract ideals. I know this'll probably come as a shock to you, but they're here for the music."

His 'angel of justice' comment didn't seem to be too far from the truth. Enjolras looked almost as though he was glowing with righteous anger directed straight at Grantaire. Marius took one look at Cosette standing stunned, still clutching her microphone as if she was no longer sure what to do with it, and barely restrained himself from slamming his head against his keyboard. They were really going to do this _now_? Right in front of Lark24601? He had half a mind to get up and bang their heads together but Enjolras would probably smite him with divine fury if he so much as raised his voice, so he settled instead for trying to beam silent apology vibes to Cosette with his eyes.

"The music is only part of what we do," retorted Enjolras. "We're here to send a _message_!"

Grantaire rolled his eyes. "Again with the fucking message. We're just a band, Apollo. Nothing we do is ever going to change anything."

"We already have changed things! We've raised awareness and support worldwide for dozens of important issues and the charities we support with our merch sales are making a real difference."

"Yeah, just keep throwing money at problems, that'll make them go away. We're not getting real support for all your pet causes, we're just making them cool. As soon as we're out of the picture everything'll go straight back to how it was."

Marius must've been witness to hundreds of arguments just like this one, but Enjolras's anger never got any less terrifying. "How can you say that? You've seen what people do in our name! We inspire them, and the end of our career isn't going to reverse that. We're making the world a better place!"

"The world is a shithole and always will be and you know it."

"Enjolras," interjected Combeferre before the singer had time to argue back. "I think I've recorded enough for us to go on for now."

"Yeah, maybe we should call it quits for today, man," said Bahorel.

Joly checked his watch. "We've been at it for two and a half hours already. Cosette's probably tired. I'll call the label and tell them the duet's going ahead then, shall I?"

Enjolras looked almost surprised to see them all still there. "Hm? Oh, yes, of course. That's probably all we need for today anyway." He turned to Cosette. "Thanks for coming. We'll call you."

"It... it was no problem," she stuttered, still a little shellshocked, as everyone began to pack up the equipment.

"Drinks at the Corinth?" suggested Bossuet, and the resulting chorus of affirmations drowned out her half-hearted goodbye. She backed out into the hallway and disappeared.

They couldn't leave it like that. Marius felt a stab of annoyance with his friends so strong it almost startled him. Would Bahorel and Grantaire tease him if he ran after her? Probably, but he didn't care. He turned off his keyboard, pulled the plug out of the wall and made for the door.

"Hey, Marius!" He spun around; Eponine was frowning at him in confusion. "Where are you going?"

"Someone's got to make sure Cosette finds her way out okay," he said, and slipped out of the studio.

He caught up to her on the street outside the building, where she was already halfway around the corner before she heard him calling her and stopped. "Marius?"

He took a deep breath. "I am so sorry about those two. Please don't worry about it, it has nothing to do with you. I thought they might be able to control themselves just for today, but apparently not."

She smiled, and his stomach flipped over. "Are they always like that?"

"Oh yeah. All the time. Since the very beginning of the band. They're like the Gallagher brothers - their creative partnership is based on one part love, one part tolerance and one part seething hatred. But they always sort themselves out in the end. Honestly, I think R just likes seeing Enjolras get himself all worked up."

"Oh. Well that's okay then, I guess."

"The songs always end up better after they're bickered over for a bit anyway," he shrugged. "It works for them."

Cosette nodded. Marius smiled. Neither of them moved.

"I-" said Marius at the same time as Cosette said, "We-"

She inclined her head. "You first."

"I..." He checked over his shoulder to make sure that they were alone, then looked her in the eye like a mercenary facing his arch-enemy across a battlefield, took a deep breath, and said, "I was wondering if you'd like to get coffee with me."

Cosette's heart skipped a beat. "I-I would love to, but... we might be working together. Professionally. Don't you think this is kind of a terrible idea?"

"Oh, I know it's a terrible idea, and the others don't even listen to my suggestions any more just to be on the safe side. But, well... if this is a mistake, it's one I'm pretty sure I want to make."

How was she supposed to say no to that? A little voice of reason was still telling her that this was stupid, it was way too fast, her papa would die before he approved of her dating a rock star, but Marius was smiling that hesitant little lopsided smile of his and it was directed at her and only her, and the voice was drowned out by her own heartbeat. "Okay," she grinned. "Let's get coffee. There's a nice café near my apartment."

He bit his lip. "Ah. Um... when I said coffee, I kind of meant it hypothetically. Like 'let's go out whether or not caffeine is involved'. We can't be seen together in public."

"Why not?"

"Don't tell the others I told you this, but you're pretty much in. You were their favourite from the beginning and you sounded great in there. They'd be mad not to pick you. So when this song hits, you're going to be famous. If someone had photos of us together you can bet they'd be all over the tabloids before it even charts."

She frowned. "But wouldn't that be a good thing? From a publicity perspective, I mean."

Marius shook his head. "This isn't Hollywood. After the hype dies down we might have a chance, but not before. If pictures of us get out now Courfeyrac would gut us in our sleep and Enjolras would never speak to me again for compromising the message of the song in the eyes of the public."

"Okay, so what do we do? Go out in disguise?"

Marius smiled. "We don't need to take it that far. I know a place."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's not very classy to beg for comments, but I'd really appreciate it if you let me know how you feel about where this story is going. Everyone's been really quiet so far and I would love some feedback on how you think it's progressing. This story is for you guys, so your opinions are very important to me. Thank you so much for reading this far!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all your comments! They absolutely made my day. By all means keep leaving them - it's reassuring to know that you're all enjoying the story and the direction it's going in.
> 
> Fair warning, this chapter is practically one great big fluffy marshmallow. Am I trying to lull you into a false sense of security? ^_^

"We should start a band."

Grantaire's fingers didn't miss a chord. "Right now? But I have an art project due fourth period."

"I'm serious," scowled Enjolras, staring across the empty school courtyard below them. "We're good. We could do it."

Grantaire sighed and let go of the guitar. "Not with timing like that. You missed your cue."

"R."

"Okay, fine, I guess we could. Why the sudden interest? What happened to Mr Future-president-only-taking-music-for-extra-arts-credit?"

Enjolras shrugged. "I've been thinking. Music makes people listen."

"Well yeah, that's kind of the point."

"No, I mean it really _makes them listen_. If I tried to take you to a public speaking club meeting with me what would you say?"

Grantaire considered. "Depends. Would you be speaking?"

"It doesn't matter. No."

"Then I'd tell you to stick it and go do something more interesting with your life."

Enjolras's eyes lit up, and that right there was what Grantaire lived for these days. They were blazing blue with inspiration and conviction so strong it seemed to leak out of him and make the whole world a little brighter. Grantaire could achieve an imitation of it by pushing his buttons and contradicting everything he said until he lit up with righteous fury, but nothing could ever really compare to this pure, dazzling sense of _purpose_.

"What if I invited you to a city council session? Or a political rally? What then?"

"See above, Apollo, what's your point?"

He smiled. It wasn't a happy smile; it was the sort of smile you might see on a wolf that's finally cornered its prey or a general that knows the enemy legion has just marched right into a trap, and it went straight to Grantaire's head. "Now imagine I'm giving you tickets to a concert."

"That's a completely different thing."

Enjolras shook his head. "It's not, though. The peace movement in the sixties, the punks, the anti-war protesters, what were they led by?"

"A natural development of societal changes and generational progression?"

" _Music_. The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, the Sex Pistols... R, people would listen to them before the government. They changed the world."

"So you want to drop out of high school and become some sort of rock 'n' roll anarchist Jesus, is that it?"

Enjolras looked slightly shocked at the idea of dropping out of school. "Not exactly. I just think that we have a message to spread and music could be the most effective way of making people sit up and pay attention."

Grantaire held up a finger. "Correction: you have a message. I have a guitar and an unhealthy habit of sitting on school rooftops with a delusional activist."

"I'm not delusional!" protested Enjolras. "I mean it! We just need what, a drummer, maybe a bassist, and we're set!"

"Yeah. Easy-peasy. I wonder why everyone isn't doing it."

"You mentioned you had a friend who plays drums," Enjolras continued, ignoring him. "Ask him if he's interested in joining us. Eponine taught herself to play guitar in seventh grade, didn't she? Maybe she could be our bassist. Come on, R! Are you with me?"

He turned to face him, eyes blazing like an electrical fire, and Grantaire knew it was all over. "Of course."

Enjolras's smile could've torn right through his soul. "We're going to start a revolution."

 

* * *

 

The Café Musain was a nondescript establishment on a street corner that had, until a few years ago, been on no-one's must-see list. It served good food and coffee and had a few devoted regulars, and in the evenings local talent could sign up to play unpaid gigs for renown and experience. Les Amis de l'ABC had played there every Friday night for months when they were barely out of high school. The café had never looked back.

Cosette met Marius on the steps of the nearest metro station - he had wanted to pick her up from her apartment and drive but she had refused in fear of him accidentally bumping into her papa - and they walked the rest of the way through alleys and sidestreets with Marius continually glancing over his shoulder as though to check they weren't being followed. Paranoia was cute on him. Cosette found the whole situation rather thrilling.

The café had changed dramatically since Les Amis de l'ABC found success. It had expanded into several of the neighbouring shops and now fielded five times as many customers per day, a percentage of which being tourists keen to see where the Amis had got their start. The street façade was much more sure of itself than it had been; it featured a bright collage of advertisements for local concerts and festivals and a huge sign reading 'THE CAFE MUSAIN - HOME TO LES AMIS DE L'ABC'. The performance nights, which had once been a casual event for anyone who felt like turning up, was now frequented by as many people as could reserve tables and was one of the most popular venues for unknown, amateur bands in the city.

In short, the Café Musain owned Les Amis de l'ABC one hell of a debt.

"Why are we here?" asked Cosette as Marius took her hand and hurried around the side of the building. "Everyone's going to recognise you. I thought you didn't want them to know?"

He grinned at her over his shoulder. "They won't. I called ahead."

The back door of the café was the polar opposite of the front: small and unassuming, tucked into the brickwork almost as if it was hiding from the crowd inside. Marius knocked, and a moment later it swung open to reveal a middle-aged woman who filled the doorway completely.

"Marius!" she exclaimed, wringing his hand with enthusiasm. "Welcome back! I haven't seen your face here in months."

"We've been busy with rehearsals and recording." He shrugged apologetically. "You know how it is."

"I do, but tell the others to drop in any time. And who's this?"

"This is Cosette," he said as she shook the woman's offered hand. "Cosette, this is Madame Hucheloup. She's been the owner of the Café Musain since it opened."

"It's lovely to meet you, Madame Hucheloup."

"Lovely to meet you too, Cosette, I'm sure. Come in, I have your room all ready for you."

She led them indoors, through the bustling kitchens and along a corridor where the noise of the regular guests leaked through the walls. Behind an unmarked door was a private room complete with a single table already set for lunch.

"I'm sorry," said Madame Hucheloup, showing them inside, "when you said you were going to be two I assumed you were bringing one of the boys - or Eponine, of course, mustn't forget her - so I'm afraid it's all a bit simple. I can get some candles for you if you like, just wait-"

"It's fine," Marius assured her. "Really. Thanks."

"If you're sure. I'll leave you two to sit yourselves down, then." She slipped back out into the corridor and shut the door behind her.

Cosette was having trouble keeping the stupid grin off her face. "We get our own room?"

"Yeah," he said, looking slightly embarrassed. "We sort of made friends with the staff back when we played here every week and we've been bringing a lot of business to the café, so we're kind of like VIP's, I guess. They keep this room reserved for us when we're in New York. Sometimes we use it for meetings and celebrations and stuff. We can trust them, they won't let people in or tell anyone we're here." He dropped his head, the tips of his ears going pink. "I'm sorry, is it too weird? I just wanted to do something nice. I knew I shouldn't have-"

"No!" Cosette squeezed his fingers and sat down at the table. "It's lovely. I've never had my own private room at a café before."

Marius brightened. "Really?"

"Really. Sometimes they give me a free meal after I perform, but YouTube can only get you so far. How long have you been watching my videos, anyway?"

"Since you did that cover of _Vive la Revolution_. Someone sent me a link through the Amis website."

"But... that was a year and a half ago." This was a dream. It had to be. She was going to wake up in bed any minute now. She hadn't just met Les Amis de l'ABC. She was not on a date with Marius Pontmercy. He ha not been watching her videos _almost since she first started making them_.

"You fascinated me. Your music, I mean. But also... also you." He shrugged. "I was the one who requested that Billie Holiday cover."

"That was you?" She dropped her face into her hands. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Would you have believed me if I did?"

She imagined getting a message from someone claiming to be a celebrity telling her she fascinated them and inviting her to come and meet up. "I probably would've thought you were osme kind of stalker," she said honestly.

He laughed. It was a nice laugh, she noted, not too loud or too cocky or too raucous, just quiet joy and genuine amusement focused only on her, and Cosette smiled back. If he kept being this cute it was quickly going to become a problem. "Have you ever had any of them, by the way?" he asked.

"Stalkers? No, not really. I jave a guy who sends me teddy bears every Saturday, but he doesn't actually stalk me. What about you? You're the famous one."

"Me neither. Enjolras has, though. There was a girl on the North America tour last year who staked out every one of his hotel rooms and refused to leave until he went on a date with her."

It wouldn't have seemed so strange before meeting him in person, but now the idea of the surly, intense singer out on a date with anyone made her giggle. "How did he make her leave him alone?"

Marius grinned. "He went on a date with her. We never saw her again."

The door opened and Madame Hucheloup shuffled in carrying a tray laden with two glasses of wine, two plates, one of spaghetti bolognese and the other of lasagne, and a bread basket. "I know it's only lunchtime," she said, placing the wineglasses carefully on the table, "but you can't take a lady out to eat without getting her something to drink as well, it's not good manners. Oh, and you can tell Grantaire we've expanded our wine list since he last came, I'm sure he'll be pleased to know. Bon appetit, you two, don't hesitate to call me if there's anything else you need."

"I called ahead to order," said Marius as Madame Hucheloup left the room with the empty tray tucked under her arm. "I hope you don't mind."

"How did you know my favourite food was lasagne?" she asked, staring at the plate in front of her in surprise.

"It was on your FAQ," he admitted. "Your favourite colour is pink, your favourite animal is a penguin and your dream is to go to Paris and kiss someone at the top of the Eiffel Tower." He bit his lip. "Sorry, am I being creepy?"

"No, it's fine," she smiled, picking up her fork. "I put a lot of things on the Internet, don't I?"

"I don't, but somehow they all end up there anyway."

"I can imagine." God, this lasagne was amazing. "I have to say, you aren't really how I expected you to be."

He looked up from his spaghetti. "Really? How did you expect me to be?"

"I don't know. More rock star-ish. You're kind of... normal."

He shrugged. "I did trash a hotel room once."

"You? You trashed a hotel room?"

"It was an accident. The others were all in my room and Bossuet knocked over a bottle of whiskey all across the desk, then when I tried to plug in my phone charger it made a spark and the whole thing caught fire. I tried to put it out with glasses of water but as I was running back from the bathroom my foot caught in the wire for the TV and it looked like it was going to fall off its stand, so I sort of lunged over to catch it and accidentally pushed it backwards out of the window. It landed right in the swimming pool." He shook his head. "The tabloids were convinced I was going off the rails. It wasn't even my whiskey."

Cosette stuffed a piece of bread in her mouth to keep herself from laughing. By the time she'd finished concentrating on chewing and not choking on it, Marius was looking straight at her and asking, "What about you? Have you always lived in New York City?"

She swallowed. "Not always. I was born here, but my father ran off and my mother moved back to her hometown - a really small place, I can't remember its name - when I was still a baby. She couldn't support us both, so she put me in the foster system for a while. I spent a few years with a foster family in this town called Montreuil in Nebraska, then the man I live with now came to tell me that my mother had died of cancer and he was going to adopt me. Then he gave me my piano, we moved to New York and I've been here ever since."

Marius listened with his fork halfway to his mouth, not seeming to notice that all the spaghetti had already fallen off it. "That's a pretty rough childhood," he said quietly. "It must've been hard for you."

"Sometimes. I don't even remember my mother. My foster family weren't the nicest people, but I've been happy ever since my papa adopted me. So it hasn't been so bad." She pointed to him with her fork. "Your turn."

"My childhood isn't as interesting as yours," he said. "I lived with my grandfather until I was eighteen. He was alright, but there were a lot of things we didn't agree on. Politically, I mean. He was pretty wealthy and had me homeschooled for most of my life so I didn't have many friends, but I've always been okay being on my own so I didn't mind so much. Then I found out that my father had been trying to see me for years and my grandfather had been keeping me away from him and lying to me about him." His face darkened. "But by then he'd passed away and it was too late. I couldn't stay with my grandfather any more after that, so I applied to do law at NYU with a music minor and hitchhiked here with a few hundred dollars I'd saved up and a backpack full of things I didn't want to throw away."

Cosette stared at him, enraptured. "That's so brave. Where did you sleep?"

"It was probably more stupid than brave, in retrospect. I don't know what I would've done if Courfeyrac hadn't found me wandering around campus and offered to let me room with him. He introduced me to all his friends, then when Enjolras announced he was starting a band Courf mentioned that I could play keyboard. And then it all sort of went from there."

It was not a long date, as far as they went. They followed their food with two bowls of ice-cream, because dessert at lunchtime is perfectly acceptable in Cosette's book if it's being fed to you across the table by Marius Pontmercy. The conversation moved from childhoods to future dreams and aspirations to random facts and stories about each other with never a dull moment. It passed so quickly Cosette was shocked to check her watch and realise that it was already three o'clock. The pang of disappointment in her chest surprised her with its intensity.

"I need to get home," she said. "I told my papa I'd only be out for lunch."

Marius's face fell. "Oh. But you're eighteen, can't you do whatever you want?"

"Legally, yeah. But I'm the only child he's ever had so he's a bit on the overprotective side. I could shake him off if I wanted to, but I owe him everything I have and I'd hate to upset him." She shrugged. "Besides, I'm still living under his roof and you know how the saying goes. His house, his rules."

"That's fair, I suppose." He hesitated, then blurted out, "Do you want me to walk you home? I mean, I know it's a long way, but I really want to do this properly and I could get a car to take us to Queens so-"

"That's really not necessary," she smiled. "But thank you."

"Are you sure? It's just good manners and... and I've never walked a girl home before. I've never done any of this first-date stuff."

She raised an eyebrow. "Never? Really?"

He shook his head and laughed nervously. "I was homeschooled, remember? By the time I finally started interacting with my peers my social skills weren't particularly great, to put it nicely. I probably wouldn't even have had friends if Courfeyrac hadn't taken pity on me."

"What about after you got famous?"

"The sort of girls who like you after you get famous aren't really interested in lunch dates and being walked home."

"I see." She sighed. "I'd love you to, but my papa will be there and I'd rather wait for a bit before I introduce you to him. Not that I don't think you can make a good impression, but he's already worried about me spending too much time with celebrities. I just want to give him time to get used to that before I tell him I'm dating one."

Marius's face positively lit up. "So... are we dating now, then?"

Cosette smiled. "I guess we are, yeah. Okay fine. You can walk me to the subway station. How's that for a compromise?"

Marius paid the bill and Madame Hucheloup waved them out of the back door with a reminder to tell the others to drop by and say hello. They took the same route back through the least obvious alleys and sidestreets available, only now he spent less time watching for people who might recognise them than he did smiling stupidly at Cosette, and they walked slowly instead of hurrying as though he was trying to savour every moment. Somewhere along the way their hands brushed together and neither of them quite got around to letting go.

Cosette was so distracted by her own contented euphoria she didn't notice that they'd reached the station steps until Marius stopped and turned to face her. He cleared his throat. "Thanks. I know I was kind of forward earlier, asking you out after I'd only just met you, but I just had this feeling, and... thank you for giving me a chance. I had such a good time today."

Cosette had to force her facial muscles to stop smiling like a giddy schoolgirl. He was very close. Her heart was beating irregular rhythms against her chest. "I felt it too."

Marius swallowed. "May... may I kiss you, please? If that's okay with you. I-"

She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his, cutting him off mid-word. She got the feeling that this wouldn't be the last time his nervous rambling would be ended like this, especially not if he always gave such an adorable little squeak of surprise, then relaxed against her lips with a sigh as his hands came to rest gently on her waist.

Kissing Marius Pontmercy was not how she'd imagined kissing a rock star would be like. But then Marius was so unlike how she'd expected a rock star to be she was hardly surprised. It was sweet and chaste, a perfect cliché, and Cosette had never been so happy in her life. It only lasted a few seconds, but it left both of them flushed and breathless.

Then they were exchanging phone numbers and goodbyes, and Cosette was holding tightly to the railing as she climbed down the stairs in case her suddenly weak knees sent her tumbling down onto the platform.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it takes me a month to update and now all I have to offer is this fleabite of a chapter. It's really short. I'm sorry. Life's been pretty hectic - I have two jobs now and every moment of spare time seems to be filled with friends and family and appointments and I don't have nearly enough time to write. It doesn't help that my muse has been on a bit of a downwards spiral recently. On the bright side, I'm pretty sure that it's due for an upswing soon. Thanks for bearing with me.

Marius had not been wrong; after only three days of texting each other pointless nothings that made them both smile, Cosette received an all-caps, emoticon-laden message informing her that she'd officially been chosen as a guest singer to feature in the next single to be released by Les Amis de l'ABC. She was so ecstatic she didnt even have to fake her excitement when she got the official call later that afternoon. This was it. This was what she'd been waiting for ever since she'd decided to go pro with her music. Not even Valjean's warnings and general pessimism could dampen her mood. She shut herself in her room, blasted classic rock songs at full volume and danced with triumph all night.

Duet rehearsals were set at three until six every day and Cosette was advised to postpone all conflicting commitments for the next month.  This was no issue aside from a few café performances she had scheduled in, all of which she cancelled gladly. Starting the Monday of the week after she was chosen Cosette began to attend Les Amis rehearsals like an actual member of the band, or at least like one of their friends, who always seemed to be hanging around the studio even if they had no job to do there. She didn't mind; they were all surprisingly nice and down-to-Earth. She'd even been invited to tag along with them after the end of rehearsals, when they either hit the town together or crashed at someone's apartment with junk food and movies just like actual people who really existed. They even added her on Facebook.

She'd found it hard to remember all of their names at first – she knew the band already, but the others were embarrassingly difficult to wrap her head around. It was Combeferre who smiled sympathetically and told her that it must be hard, having to absorb so much overwhelming information all at once, and that she was doing well as it was and really shouldn't let herself get too nervous if she could help it. Joly had surprised her by asking for a medical certificate – “You know how it is, you just can't be too careful these days. Sorry, could you please not stand quite so close? I'd hate for you to catch my gastroenteritis.” (Bossuet explained quietly that Joly suffered from asthma, stomach ulcers and gastroenteritis this week, and last week it had been a pollen allergy, bronchitis and clinical anxiety. But she should probably get a medical certificate or he'd make them all get immunised). Courfeyrac seemed to have missed the memo that she wasn't already his best friend, not that she minded. It was him who had started the Facebook thing, though she was already considering unfriending him after her feed was flooded with selfies, random quotes and bad puns that had probably seemed funny at the time.

The thing that surprised her most was how genuinely nice to her all of them seemed to be. Valjean, she decided, was wrong; rock stars (and their associates) were lovely people. The only one who she wouldn't have liked to be left alone with was, oddly enough, the only other girl in the studio. Cosette didn't know whether Eponine was always slightly spiky or if it was something she'd done, but she put her off her ease. There was nothing to be done except to keep smiling across the room at her and hope she warmed up eventually.

 

* * *

 

Three weeks into rehearsals, Grantaire was a breath away from eagerly accepting Bahorel's offer to hit up the Corinth that afternoon when he caught Eponine's eye across the studio. He'd known her since primary school and was easily qualified to write a pocket guide to each one of her meaningful looks from 'hey gorgeous why don't you and I get out of here' to 'you fucking say that again asshole and I swear on all that is holy I'll stab you in the eye socket' and could tell at a glance that this one read clearly 'stay here, I want to talk to you'. So he waved the others off with a vague, "You go on ahead, I'll catch up later," and pretended to fiddle with his amp until they filtered out of the room like students after the bell.

Once the door to the studio shut after Combeferre, who had stayed to back up his recordings (or whatever he called what he did on that desk of his full of knobs and buttons and sliders - technology had never been Grantaire's strong point), he slumped back down onto his chair and folded his arms. "What's up?"

She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, hiding her face behind her dark hair like she did when she didn't want to look anyone in the eye. "I think there's something going on with Marius and Cosette," she said.

Grantaire raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"

"Like... between them." She sighed. "I think they're seeing each other behind our backs."

There was a moment of silence, then he got up from his chair to sit beside her and wrap an arm around her shoulders. "'Ponine," he said gently, and he was pitying her, he knew she couldn't stand that, "if this is about-"

"It's not about that," she snapped, staring at her knees, but she didn't shrug his arm away. "It's not just some baseless jealous hallucinations. I can't be the only one who's seen how they look at each other when they think no-one's watching them. Haven't you noticed it, R?"

Grantaire nodded. "Don't take this the wrong way, but they look at each other the same way you look at him. It doesn't mean there's any actual relationship there."

"But what if there is?"

"The puppy knows what's good for him. Enjolras and Courfeyrac'll tag team to beat him to death if he starts dating another band member, even if she is only a guest. Maybe a few months from now you'll have something to worry about, but for now you just need to relax. Okay?"

For a moment she looked as though she might be about to say something else, but then she seemed to deflate and lean into Grantaire's side, resting her head on his shoulder. "Okay," she said, then, "Sucks, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. It sucks."

He often forgot how small Eponine really was. She could be so fierce and so loud, it surprised him every time he realised how skinny she was. It didn't worry him like it used to - she'd been able to feed herself properly ever since the band started to catch on - but it did make him tighten his arm around her and pull her in for a hug.

"I wish I could hate her," she mumbled into his shoulder. "This would all be so much easier if she was a massive bitch or something. But she's really nice, R. She keeps... smiling at me. It's weird as shit but... but no-one's ever smiled at me just because before, you know? She's not even my friend. I'm not even nice to her."

"You're never nice to people when you first meet them," he said matter-of-factly. "You've got a prickly shell, and that's okay. There's a good reason for it. I'm sure Cosette doesn't mind. Just give her the benefit of the doubt and I promise this'll all be fine."

She drew back, smiling despite herself, and flicked him on the nose. "Look at you being all optimistic."

"Yeah, well, don't tell the others. I have a reputation to uphold." He stood up and offered Eponine his hand. "Let's go to the Corinth. I'll buy you a drink and we can forget all about stupid fucking unrequited love. Romance is overrated anyway."

If it was anyone else besides Grantaire she would've pushed his hand away and stood up on her own. But it was Grantaire and they had always understood each other better than they would've liked to admit, so she let him help her to her feet and brushed the dust off her jeans. "That's the best idea I've heard all day. Let's go get wasted."


End file.
